The amazing Canadian summer that ... wasn't, really

I know that my fellow Canadians living on the West Coast are currently drowning in massive pools of their own sweat with a wild heat wave that is sweeping B.C.  And as someone who thinks "humidity" should just be re-named "death" I really don't envy those of you who are sitting limply, trying to just find enough energy to drag yourselves to the nearest beach, pool, or bathtub to cool off.

That being said, I don't particularly care for the sub-arctic freeze that is known as winter either (no, I'm not very easy to please am I?), at least in part because winter just lasts so long here.  Because of that, I put aside my trepidation over having to consider things like the Humidex and I look forward to summer for, you know, the summery things.

Things like swimming.  Playing in the park.  Swimming.  Having BBQs with friends.  Swimming.  Drinking a glass of wine outside on someone's deck or my own balcony.  Did I mention the swimming?  I hold tight to memories of those things when it's March and Montreal is getting its 42nd dumping of snow that season.

And let me tell you, so far this summer has royally sucked overall.  It hasn't been ALL bad, but there has been an insane amount of rain and thunderstorms.  If I had a backyard with my own pool, maybe the rain wouldn't be so bad, but it's a huge pain to get the kids and ourselves ready, drive across town to the public pool (or a friend's pool), only to have it start to pour rain ten minutes later.  It might not even be a deal-breaker if it was warm but the rain has not only been relentless, it's been downright cold too!

Speaking of cold, even the temperatures are wonky.  For the most part it seems that all I hear on my local news channel is the meteorologist saying that once again our temps are below average for this time of year.  The other day we were all ecstatic to have some humidity because when you combined it with the lower-than-normal base temperature it ALMOST felt like a regular summer day!

On the other hand, we've been appreciating the good days as much as possible.  If it's a nice day it's no longer unusual to see me with the kids at the park before lunch, something I don't normally do - but now we do because by afternoon it could be thundering.  If it's too humid in the afternoon (as it was today), then we go for a couple of hours after supper because playing on the swings trumps a bath these days.

Our friends just got a nice big pool installed and my husband has been helping them out by building a deck for it (in between rain showers!).  On Friday they invited us to come over for a swim.  Let me tell you something.  Between the fact that it had just been filled earlier that week and the days and nights haven't been all that hot, that water was cold at only 22C / 76F.  The thing is, I hadn't been swimming ONCE yet this summer so despite the fact that normally I would not be keen on swimming in water at that temperature I got my bathing-suit-clad ass into that pool three times and I LIKED IT.

When I was taking part in Blogathon on Saturday-Sunday (a marathon blogging fundraiser where I raised money for the UNHCR by blogging every half hour for 24 hours) I was invited out for a BBQ.  I normally wouldn't have gone since I wouldn't want the stress of trying to remember to post or worrying about tiring myself out, but I had only been to one BBQ this season so I bloody well went and enjoyed every second of it that I could (and took my laptop with me to keep up my duties of course!).

It's just that it's taking away some of the fun of summer.  Summer memories for me are all about relaxing and just going with the flow.  With the weather acting as unpredictable as a crack junkie, it feels like it's all so desperate, you know?  It's all "oh my GOD, the SUN, go go go!" instead of, "Hmm, the park or the pool today?"

Here's hoping August is a little more stable than July!

How's the weather in your neck of the woods compared to years gone by?

(Original post for Canada Moms Blog.  Sherry also blogs at Chaos Theory where she even has a separate category strictly for the purpose of bitching about Canadian weater.)